Top Japanese Stocks To Invest In 2015

Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S  ) shareholders voted today to approve the company's merger agreement with Japanese telecom SoftBank, Sprint announced today.

The company said that 98% of the votes cast today voted in favor of the transaction. Those votes accounted for around 80% of Sprint's outstanding common stock as of April 18.

"The transaction with SoftBank should enhance Sprint's long-term value and competitive position by creating a company with greater financial flexibility," said Sprint CEO Dan Hesse.

SoftBank had been battling satellite-TV provider DISH Network (NASDAQ: DISH  ) �since April 15 for the right to buy Sprint. It was only last week that SoftBank seemed destined to come out on top when it sweetened its proposal with an additional $4.5 billion in cash for shareholders.

SoftBank's original agreement with Sprint was for $20.1 billion for 70% of the No. 3 U.S. wireless provider. The voted-upon agreement raised that price to $21.6 billion for a 78% slice of Sprint, and it will put up to $16.64 billion into the pockets of Sprint stockholders.

5 Best Chemical Stocks To Watch Right Now: Powershares Dynamic Food & Beverage Portfolio (PBJ)

PowerShares Dynamic Food & Beverage Portfolio (the Fund) seeks investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield of an equity index called the Dynamic Food & Beverage Intellidex Index (the Food & Beverage Intellidex). The Food & Beverage Intellidex consists of stocks of 30 United States food and beverage companies. These are companies that are principally engaged in the manufacture, sale or distribution of food and beverage products, agricultural products and products related to the development of new food technologies. These companies may include companies that sell products and services, such as meat and poultry processing, and wholesale and retail distribution and warehousing of food and food-related products, including restaurants, grocery stores, brewers, distillers and vintners, as well as companies that manufacture and distribute products, including soft drinks, packaged food products (such as cereals, pet foods and frozen foods), health food and dietary products. Stocks are selected principally on the basis of their capital appreciation potential as identified by the AMEX (the Intellidex Provider) pursuant to its Intellidex methodology. The Fund��s investment advisor is PowerShares Capital Management LLC.

The Food & Beverage Intellidex is adjusted quarterly, and the Fund, using an indexing investment approach, attempts to replicate the performance of the Food & Beverage Intellidex. The Fund generally will invest in all of the stocks comprising the Food & Beverage Intellidex in proportion to their weightings in the Food & Beverage Intellidex. The Fund will normally invest at least 80% of its total assets in common stocks of food and beverage companies. The Fund will normally invest at least 90% of its total assets in common stocks that comprise the Food & Beverage Intellidex.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By John Udovich]

  Small cap ingredients stock Balchem Corporation (NASDAQ: BCPC) jumped 22.76% yesterday on news about an acquisition, meaning its worth taking a closer look at the stock along with potential peers like small cap MGP Ingredients Inc (NASDAQ: MGPI) and the PowerShares Dynamic Food & Beverage ETF (NYSEARCA: PBJ).

Top Japanese Stocks To Invest In 2015: ViewPoint Financial Group Inc.(VPFG)

ViewPoint Financial Group, Inc. operates as the holding company for ViewPoint Bank, which provides financial services for consumers and businesses. Its deposit products include checking, savings, money market, demand accounts, and certificates of deposit. The company?s loan portfolio comprises real estate loans, such as one-to four-family, commercial construction, and home equity loans, as well as commercial real estate loans for office buildings, retail centers, light industrial facilities, warehouses, and multifamily properties; consumer loans, including new and used automobile loans, recreational vehicle loans, loans secured by savings deposits, and unsecured consumer loans; and commercial non-mortgage loans, including loans to finance business working capital, commercial vehicles, and equipment, as well as lines of credit. It also offers brokerage services for the purchase and sale of non-deposit investment and insurance products through a third party brokerage arrang ement. As of March 31, 2011, the company operated 23 community bank offices in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex and 13 loan production offices located in Texas, Oklahoma, and Ohio. ViewPoint Financial Group, Inc. is headquartered in Plano, Texas.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By John Udovich]

  Texas has set another record for job creation�with small cap Texas banking stock like Texas Capital Bancshares (NASDAQ: TCBI), ViewPoint Financial Group (NASDAQ: VPFG) and First Financial Bankshares (NASDAQ: FFIN) naturally being well positioned to take advantage of the Texas economic miracle (see my previous article: Texas is Booming and So Are These Texas Stocks (EE, TPL & ATO)). I should�add that I wrote about�these Texas banking stocks back in late 2012�(see: Don��t Mess With Texas Banking Stocks TCBI, VPFG & FFIN) and the Texas Workforce Commission has just�reported that the Texas economy added 36,400 jobs in September while over the past 12 months, employers added 413,700 jobs �� the most ever recorded by the state. Moreover, several companies surveyed by the Dallas Fed responded by saying�they are seeing labor market tightness�while companies are saying they are experiencing upward wage pressures�and�staffing�firms�note that�candidates are often receiving multiple offers.

• [By Rich Smith]

  Plano, Texas-based ViewPoint Financial Group (NASDAQ: VPFG  ) is looking for a new CFO.

  On Wednesday, just before investors packed their bags for the holiday, ViewPoint announced that Chief Financial Officer Pathie E. McKee�intends to resign from the bank holding company at the end of this month. She will continue assisting ViewPoint in the capacity of a consultant through the end of the year, however, helping to ensure a smooth transition for her replacement.

Top Japanese Stocks To Invest In 2015: Atmos Energy Corporation(ATO)

Atmos Energy Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, engages primarily in the distribution, transmission, and storage of natural gas in the United States. The company operates in four segments: Natural Gas Distribution; Regulated Transmission and Storage; Natural Gas Marketing; and Pipeline, Storage, and Other. The Natural Gas Distribution segment involves in regulated natural gas distribution business and related sales operations. It distributes natural gas through regulated sales and transportation arrangements to approximately 3 million residential, commercial, public authority, and industrial customers in 12 states located primarily in the southern United States. As of September 30, 2009, this segment owned approximately 70,879 miles of underground distribution and transmission mains. The Regulated Transmission and Storage segment transports natural gas for third parties and manages five underground storage reservoirs in Texas. It owned 5,950 miles of gas transmis sion and gathering lines. The Natural Gas Marketing segment provides various natural gas management and marketing services to municipalities, other local gas distribution companies, and industrial customers. The Pipeline, Storage, and Other segment offers natural gas gathering, transmission, and storage services. It owned 113 miles of gas transmission and gathering lines. Atmos Energy Corporation was founded in 1906 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Inyoung Hwang]

  Atos (ATO) dropped 3.5 percent to 62.07 euros for a fifth straight day of losses. Shareholder PAI Partners SAS is selling 8.9 million shares in the French company for 61.25 euros each.

• [By Garrett Cook]

  Utilities shares fell around 0.23 percent in trading on Wednesday. Top losers in the sector included Vectren (NYSE: VVC), down 1.47 percent, and Atmos Energy (NYSE: ATO), off 0.80 percent.

• [By David Dittman]

  This mini-selloff has brought many UF Portfolio Holdings below our recommended buy-under targets and back into play for new money, including long-term favorites Atmos Energy Inc (NYSE: ATO) and Duke Energy Corp (NYSE: DUK) as well as recent additions such as NextEra Energy Inc (NYSE: NEE).

• [By Marc Courtenay]

  Another lesser-known possibility is Atmos Energy (ATO), the $3.93 billion (market cap) company that engages in the distribution, transmission, and storage of natural gas in the United States. As of the last quarter of 2012, its year-over-year EPS growth was 17.5%.

Top Japanese Stocks To Invest In 2015: Standard Parking Corporation(STAN)

Standard Parking Corporation provides parking management, ground transportation, and other ancillary services to commercial, institutional, and municipal clients in the United States and Canada. Its services include collection and deposit of parking revenues; daily housekeeping; restriping of the parking stalls; maintenance of parking equipment, such as ticket dispensing machines, parking gate arms, and fee computers; painting of walkways, curbs, ceilings, walls, and other facility surfaces; and snow removal from sidewalks and driveways. The company also provides shuttle bus vehicles and drivers to operate them in support of on-airport car rental operations, as well as private off-airport parking locations; and ancillary ground transportation services at airports, such as taxi and livery dispatch, concierge-type ground transportation information, and support services for arriving passengers. In addition, it offers shuttle bus services, on-street parking meter collection, a nd other parking enforcement services for municipalities; and valet parking and shuttle bus services for the medical center and hospital markets. The company serves private and public owners, municipalities, managers and developers of office buildings, residential properties, commercial properties, shopping centers and other retail properties, sports and special event complexes, hotels, and hospitals and medical centers. As of December 31, 2011, it managed approximately 2,200 parking facility locations containing approximately 1.2 million parking spaces in approximately 345 cities; operated 147 parking-related service centers serving 61 airports; and a fleet of approximately 550 shuttle buses. The company was founded in 1929 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Namitha Jagadeesh]

  A gauge of banking shares in the FTSE 350 Index reversed earlier gains, declining 0.5 percent. Standard Chartered Plc (STAN) fell 1.8 percent to 1,470 pence and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc lost 2.6 percent to 276.7 pence.

• [By Namitha Jagadeesh]

  Elekta AB dropped 4.3 percent after posting quarterly profit that missed forecasts. Standard Chartered (STAN) Plc slid 6.6 percent. PSA Peugeot Citroen advanced 2.4 percent as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. added the shares to its conviction-buy list.

Top Japanese Stocks To Invest In 2015: Ralcorp Holdings Inc.(RAH)

Ralcorp Holdings, Inc. engages in manufacturing, distributing, and marketing private-brand food products, ready-to-eat cereal products, and other regional and value-brand food products. Its products include ready-to-eat and hot cereals; nutritional and cereal bars; snack mixes, corn-based chips, and extruded corn snack products; crackers and cookies; snack nuts; chocolate candy; salad dressings; mayonnaise; peanut butter; jams and jellies; syrups; sauces; frozen griddle products, including pancakes, waffles, and French toast; frozen biscuits and other frozen pre-baked products, such as breads and rolls; frozen and refrigerated doughs; and dry pasta. The company offers its products under various brands, including Post, Honey Bunches of Oats, Pebbles, Post Selects, Great Grains, Spoon Size, Grape-Nuts, Honeycomb, 3 Minute Brand, Ralston, Parco, Lofthouse, Krusteaz, Panne Provincio, Major Peters?, Medallion, Ry Krisp, Champagne, Monet, Rippin? Good, Hoody?s, Linette, JERO, Flavor House, Nutcracker, Pennsylvania Dutch, Heartland, Golden Grain, Anthony?s, Pasta Lensi, Ronco, and Mueller?s. It also develops, manufactures, and markets emulations of various types of branded food products to retailers, mass merchandisers, and drug stores to sell under their own store brands or under value-brands. Ralcorp Holdings, Inc. sells its products to retail chains, mass merchandisers, grocery wholesalers, warehouse club stores, drugstores, restaurant chains, and foodservice distributors in the United States, as well as in Canada, Europe, and southeast Asia. It offers its products through a broker network, internal sales staff, independent sales agency, a network of third party warehouses, and independent truck lines. The company was founded in 1995 and is based in St. Louis, Missouri.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Louis Navellier]

  A $15.5 billion business that employs 34,800 worldwide, ConAgra is the fourth largest player in the Processed & Packaged Goods industry. In early 2013, ConAgra completed its buyout of Ralcorp Holdings (RAH) making the combined company one of the largest packaged food players on the continent.

• [By Will Ashworth]

  Post’s debt has risen substantially since its separation from Ralcorp (RAH) in February 2012. Including its $370 million acquisition of the Dakota Growers Pasta Company announced Sept. 16, Post has spent $717 million moving into other areas of the food industry beyond cereal.

Top Japanese Stocks To Invest In 2015: Mechanical Technology Inc (MKTY)

Mechanical Technology, Incorporated (MTI), incorporated on October 4, 1961, operates in two segments: the Test and Measurement Instrumentation segment, which is conducted through MTI Instruments, Inc. (MTI Instruments), a wholly-owned subsidiary, and the New Energy segment, which is conducted through MTI MicroFuel Cells, Inc. (MTI Micro), a variable interest entity (VIE) as of December 31, 2011. MTI Instruments is a worldwide supplier of precision non-contact physical measurement solutions, portable balance equipment and wafer inspection tools. MTI Micro is developing Mobion, a handheld energy-generating device. Mobion handheld generators are based on direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) technology. As of December 31, 2011, the Company owned approximately 47.6% of MTI Micro's interest.

The Test and Measurement Instrumentation Segment

MTI Instruments is a worldwide supplier of precision non-contact physical measurement solutions, portable balance equipment and wafer inspection tools. MTI Instrument's products use a range of technologies to solve applications in numerous industries including manufacturing, semiconductor, solar, commercial and military aviation, automotive and data storage. The Company's test and measurement segment has three product groups: Precision Instruments, Semiconductor and Solar Metrology Systems, and Aviation Balancing Systems. The Company's products consist of electronic, computerized gauging instruments for position, displacement and vibration applications for the design, manufacturing/production and test and research markets; metrology tools for wafer characterization of semiconductor and solar wafers; tensile stage systems for materials testing in research and industrial settings; and engine balancing and vibration analysis systems for both military and commercial aircraft.

The Precision Instruments group employs capacitance, laser and fiber optic technologies to make nano-accurate measurements. These advanced sensing and physical measur! ement technologies are used to produce products that range from basic sensors to complete, fully integrated measurement systems, and are available as single sensors for integration into existing data acquisition systems or as complete system level solutions that can be further integrated into a facility wide communication backbone. MTI Instruments' Precision Instruments product offerings & technologies include Accumeasure Family, Microtrak Family, Microtrak II Series, Microtrak Pro-2D, MTI-2100 Fotonic Sensor Series, MTI Tensile Stages, Semiconductor and Solar Metrology Systems, Aviation Balancing Systems, PBS-4100+ /4100R+ Portable Balancing System, TSC-4800A Tachometer Signal Conditioner, and 1510A Calibrator.

The Accumeasure family of products is designed to address the needs of product developers, process engineers, researchers, designers, and others who need measurements. MTI Instrument's Microtrak family of laser triangulation sensors offers displacement, position and vibration measurements. The Microtrak II comes with an interface controller that provides a digital display of the target position, alarm set points and connections for analog and RS-485 outputs. The Microtrak II Stand-Alone Laser Head also uses complementary metal oxide semiconductors with charged coupled device (CMOS - CCD) detection technology. During the year ended December 31, 2011, MTII launched its Microtrak PRO-2D laser triangulation scanners, which provides profile, displacement and dimensional information in real time.

The MTI-2100 features fiber-optic and electronic technologies for precise measurements of displacement, position and vibration. MTI Instruments' miniature tensile, compression and bend testing machines are designed for use in scanning electron microscopes, atomic force microscopes, and light microscopes. The Company's family of wafer metrology systems includes manual and semi-automated systems. The Semiconductor and Solar Metrology Systems include Proforma 200SA/300SA, Proforma 300 a! nd PV-100! 0. The Proforma 300 is a manual tool. The PV-1000 is incorporated into solar cell production lines to help manufacturers determine quality control issues. The computer-based portable balancing systems (PBS) products collect and record aircraft engine vibration data, identify vibration or balance trouble in an engine, and calculate a solution to the problem.

The portable PBS-4100+ detects if an engine has a vibration problem or a trim balance problem and provides a solution, resulting in reduced engine vibration, longer engine life, and lower fuel costs. The PBS-4100R+ rack mounted system offers the same features and functions as the portable PBS-4100+ with added data channels, speed input channels, direct current (DC) outputs and diagnostic options. TSC-4800A Tachometer Signal Conditioner is targeted for operators of Engine Test cells, where accurate and reliable conditioning of speed signals is essential. The TSC-4800A features multiple output circuits that provide more than 10 different signals types for the monitoring devices. The PBS family of products includes a 1510A calibrator - a product that automatically performs a calibration check of the PBS unit which otherwise would take hours.

The New Energy Segment

MTI Micro has been developing an off-the-grid power solution for various portable electronic devices to address this power gap. The Company's DMFC technology platform, called Mobion, converts methanol fuel to usable electricity. The Company's fuel cell power solution consists of two components integrated into a manufactured device: the direct methanol fuel cell power engine, which the Company refers to as its Mobion Chip, and methanol fuel cartridges. MTI Micro is focusing the development of an external power charger product as a standalone device that uses a universal serial bus (USB) interface as a power output connector that can be used to recharge handheld mobile devices. A fuel cell is an electrochemical energy conversion device, which is similar t! o a batte! ry that produces electricity from a liquid or gaseous fuel, such as methanol, and an oxidant, such as oxygen.

The Company competes with KLA-Tencor, Sigma Tech Corporation, E+H Eichhorn+Hausmann GmbH, Chadwick-Helmuth Company, Inc., ACES Systems, Micro-Epsilon, and Keyence Corporation.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By John Udovich]

  Meanwhile, Plug Power Inc was formed in 1997 as a joint venture of Michigan utility owner DTE Energy Co (NYSE: DTE) and Mechanical Technology Inc (OTCMKTS: MKTY) to develop fuel-cell systems to power homes and small businesses. Plug Power Inc says it has�revolutionized the material handling industry with cost-effective power solutions that increase productivity, lower operating costs and reduce carbon footprints as�it manufactures a full suite of products designed to fit seamlessly into the existing battery compartment of all major OEM material handling equipment. The company also says that�its GenDrive fuel cell is a superior alternative to lead-acid batteries for electric lift trucks in the $20 billion�global material handling market.

Top Japanese Stocks To Invest In 2015: Avanir Pharmaceuticals Inc(AVNR)

Avanir Pharmaceuticals, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in acquiring, developing, and commercializing novel therapeutic products for the treatment of central nervous system disorders primarily in the United States. The company primarily offers NUEDEXTA, a unique proprietary combination of dextromethorphan and low-dose quinidine for the treatment of pseudobulbar affect. Its product line also comprises AVP-923 in Phase II clinical trial for the treatment of central neuropathic pain in patients with multiple sclerosis; and in Phase III trial for the treatment of patients with diabetic peripheral neuropathic pain. In addition, the company provides Docosanol 10% cream, an over-the-counter product for cold sores treatment. Avanir Pharmaceuticals, Inc. was founded in 1988 and is headquartered in Aliso Viejo, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Sean Williams]

  The end of the week brought fantastic news for shareholders in Avanir Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AVNR  ) who witnessed the CHMP recommending approval for Nuedexta, it's already U.S.-approved treatment for psuedobulbar affect. An approval in Europe would be a key win for Avanir as Nuedexta currently makes up the majority of its revenue. In addition, it's worth noting that the European Medicine Agency's panel recommended two dosing regimens, potentially broadening in patient reach. Shares reacted notably higher but tapered off by the end of the day on Friday. Although the EMA isn't required to follow the recommendation of its panel, this would be a case where I'd be mildly surprised if it didn't.

• [By Keith Speights]

  Avanir Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AVNR  ) reported its fiscal second-quarter results after the market closed on Wednesday. Here are the key points that investors need to know.